Page 80 of Trigger Discipline
Tommy and Victoria slammed into his back. “Go! They’re coming!”
“No wait—” he didn’t have a chance to finish, Phin hauling him out the door and into daylight.
Right out into the open.
Smoke still curled in the air, sluggish in the still afternoon from where fires had burned out. Rubble piled high, bits and pieces of what he could only assume had been homes and buildings were crushed. Some piles were taller than he was.
And in the middle, at the edge of a long cut in the earth, was the wrecked fuselage of a passenger jet.
Broken apart, the intact pieces looked like a crushed soda can. Insulation from the entire thing sprouted out of cracks. Passenger seats had ripped free and were littered around the fuselage like breadcrumbs. One of the wings looked like it had disintegrated, tiny flecks of aluminum glinting in the sun. The second wing had snapped off a hundred yards or so from the fuselage, lying upright like a ramp, the engine nestled at the base.
They were standing in what was once a shopping district. Blake had even been here before. He’d responded to a heat stroke call about a year or so ago. He remembered thinking it looked like a nice place with clean-cut buildings, just a few blocks from the water, and fountains the kids were throwing pennies into.
The plane crash had cratered the entire place. It looked like the plane had originally struck as far as a quarter mile back, its propulsion slowly ebbing before it came to rest here.
“It stalled,” Victoria said grimly.
Which made sense. The pilots probably lost power during the first EMP. They’d glided as far as they could go, desperately trying to find a runway or a clear area to land. The fact that the plane was so intact was a testament to the pilot’s skill.
Blake almost asked if Victoria thought anyone had survived when Gabriel and Judd burst out of the restaurant. “It’s right on our asses!”
“Hold on,” Blake shouted, holding up his hand.
“No time! It’s right on our asses!” Gabriel grabbed for him, but Blake slapped his hand away.
“No! Listen! I think this is a tr—” the rest of his sentence was lost to the restaurant behind them imploding. The shockwave knocked them all forward, and Tommy cried out as a brick struck him. Blake found himself on his knees, scrambling to get to his feet. His balance was still off, body not listening—or maybe he was too tired. Gritting his teeth, he blinked the sweat out of his eyes to look up and see a swarm of Monkey Cats running into the shopping plaza through the hole the plane had punched.
There were dozens of them, their claws scraping along the cement and asphalt, antennae quivering. It was hard to get a read on just how many there were; their shifting hides made it difficult to discern one from the other.
Behind them, the FUD broke through the metal door, its claws clacking. The whine of the drone mixed in.
It was a trap.
“Oh god,” Blake rasped, his stomach swooping. “We’re bait.”
Gabriel’s helmet had been knocked askew. He righted it as he looked at Blake. “What?”
“The Off Formers,” he whispered, slowly getting to his feet. “They pushed us here. Herded us like cattle…used the gunfire to draw the Monkey Cat’s attention so they’d come here to be…” he looked up at the roof of the closest building. He saw a flash of matte black.
“Slaughtered.”
The plane hadn’t just broken through the buildings; it had made the perfect valley. On all sides, the buildings had crashed into each other, forming a basin. Wherever a hole popped up big enough to slither through, an Off Former had planted itself, weapons at the ready.
The only clear exits were where the Monkey Cats werestreaming through…and the restaurant behind them. The one the Off Formers just blew up.
Blake had been right: this was never about them.
Gabriel realized it first. “We’re surrounded.”
He couldn’t say who shot first. But at the first crack of a gun, they were sprinting toward the only shelter in the cratered mall—the broken fuselage.
Chunks of building, dust, dirt, and fire rained down all around them. Incendiary rounds from the Off Formers burned through everything they touched. The ground shook under Blake’s feet as he lurched forward. On the other side of the plane, Off Formers were stepping from the shadows and jumping off buildings. FUD’s claws clacked moments before a Monkey Cat screeched, its high-pitched death knell so loud it knocked the breath from his lungs.
Tommy and Victoria got to the plane first. They dove through the splintered fuselage, clearing a path through lopsided seats and bent aluminum. The place reeked of fuel and something Blake didn’t recognize.
Gabriel pushed Blake in first, following closely once everyone was inside the plane.
Although, inside was relative. The plane was open on one end, a gaping maw at what would have been the front of the plane. The cockpit was a dozen yards away, twisted onto its side. Judd and Gabriel took up defensive positions at the front, getting down on one knee behind the flimsy protection of some overturned seats.